


i swear i don't need help (okay, maybe a little bit)

by Adarocean



Category: Power Rangers (2017)
Genre: Billy is like the cutest human to ever exist, Jason also doesnt understand when too many punches is too many punches, Kim can't seem to understand personal space, Multi, Rape, Trini is a bebe who needs protecting, angst to angst to angst., not gonna lie zack is the best bro, sorry - Freeform, trigger warning, you're not going to like the rangers (excluding zack) in the first few chapters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-28
Updated: 2017-03-29
Packaged: 2018-10-11 23:40:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10477188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adarocean/pseuds/Adarocean
Summary: Trini doesn’t need help.  Trini has never needed help.Although, with her back pressed against the wall of the girls room surrounded by cheerleaders, it feels an awful lot like needing help.





	1. it most defiantly wasn't a question

**Author's Note:**

> Rated Teen and Up not sure if thats okay. Maybe Mature.

Trini doesn’t need help. Trini has never needed help. Although, with her back pressed against the wall of the girl's room surrounded by cheerleaders, it feels an awful lot like needing help. She had been at the school for a year, why on Earth are people deciding to notice her now. Maybe it was because of her sudden jump from a friend total of 0 to 4. Or maybe it was the fact that two of those friends happened to be Jason Scott and Kimberly Hart. That doesn't just happen. She knows that. So maybe that was the reasoning behind her current predicament. After their first big fight as a team, Trini had started showing up at Saturday detention purely to be with her friends, no other reason. Apparently, cheer practice happens at the same time as Saturday detention. Go figure. So Trini leaving to use the bathroom, after denying the need for Kim to go with her, ended up with her surrounded by a mob of angry (probably bloodthirsty) cheerleaders. 

"So you're DeDe?" Trini wasn't sure which one of them spoke exactly but she was sure it was one of the ones in the back. She didn't want to respond, she wasn't going to them that satisfaction. So she held her mouth shut and tried to push past. The fact that her strength was overcome by a group of maybe 15 cheerleaders was surprising. All things considered, her deep rooted emotional turmoil, her very secret crush on Kim, and her impending coming out, might have played a part in her weakness. She doesn't know how this superhero thing works yet. "No, that's not how this works. You're going to answer me."

"It's Trini." She had mumbled it out. She didn't like talking (she never has). The cheerleaders scoffed. Actually scoffed. As if Trini correcting them on her name was so much of a weird thing to do. She knew fighting her way past them would be pointless, and for once she felt like she needed help. A verbal assault is what she was expecting. (That's what she got she supposes.)

"How on God's green one did you manage to get Jason Scott to talk to you?" Trini guesses that was Amanda. She hadn't heard a lot from when Kim was a cheerleader but she's not an idiot.

"Yeah, now Bobby-"

"Billy." Trini was seething.

"Whatever, Bobby I can understand, you're both weird. Jason Scott though?!"

"She even has Zack Taylor following her around like a lost puppy!"

"Let's not forget about our dear old Kimberly." Harper. Trini knew her name, she had pulled an angry Kim away from Harper several times recently.

"Plus," Amanda again "I heard you're a dyke. The Kim we know wasn't very, supportive if you will, of that lifestyle." Trini leaned her head against the cold tile of the bathroom wall. 

"Oh, you're right Amanda! Didn't Kim throw a girl off the squad just because she went through with kissing a girl in Spin The Bottle?"

"I believe so, now she doesn't know about you does she?" She knocked her head lightly against the wall a few times, anger coursing through her body. 

"That'd be bad." It wasn't anger.

"Very bad." It was sadness.

"I mean, you probably have a crush on Kimmy don't you?" She wanted to scream.

"You know, I've heard of a way to make the gay in you go away." Trini knew where this was going.

"Doesn't Ty have a saying for that?" Trini felt her blood run cold.

"'It only takes a true man to change that.'" The entirety of the cheerleaders chanted out the saying in a way that made Trini want to throw up.

Her arms were grabbed by Harper and Amanda as she was dragged out of the bathroom and towards the locker room. Glancing up at a clock in the hallway she saw that only around 10 minutes had passed. No one would be looking for her. She could probably have fought them, but who's to say that it would have made it better. In Trini's eyes that would have made it worse, much worse. So she's lead into the boy's locker room and held down in a shower stall until Ty walks in. All muscle, and sharp jaw. She grimaced at the hunger and mischief in his eyes. He started to peel his sweaty football uniform off as he waved the cheerleaders off. Ty seemed to know what he was there for, not hesitation in his movements, or questions in his glances. Then the hands left her wrists and shoulders and Trini jumped to get away. His hand slammed down on her head and the force knocked her to the ground. His cleat moved to press into her shoulder effectively pinning her to the ground. She was a fucking power ranger for god's sake. Ty of all people should not be able to pin her to the shower floor with one leg. The light pastel yellow shirt that Kim had picked out for her was ripping right above the collar bone as he pivoted on his foot. She remembers scoffing when Kim had shown her it.

“Just because I’m the yellow ranger doesn’t mean I have to dress in only yellow now Kim.”

“I think it’s cute.” 

"Whatever you say." She let herself smile at the memory before hearing Ty and breaking out of her stupor.

"So you're a dyke who needs the right man?" His tone was disgusting.

"I'm a human being who knows what you're going to do."

"Are you a virgin Trini?"

"Are you a dick Ty?"

"Wow. A virgin dyke."

"Ty, please. I don't like guys, at all."

"It only takes a true man to change that." Trini whimpered under his foot as he pressed harder into her shoulder. Her shirt had a nice hole in the collar now the Ty used to reach down and grab bringing her into a face to face confrontation. He leaned down kneeling in front of her, holding up her form with his had gripped in her shirt. "You know, I never thought it'd be you."

"You're a douche bag."

"Jason Lee Scott of all people pays attention to you now?"

"Please don't do this."

"Don't do what Trini?"

"I know what happens next."

"Oh?"

"I get raped."

"You're catching on."

His hand pulled downward in one swift motion effectively ripping her shirt from the collar down. He made quick work of using her, using her entire body for his sick pleasure. Her eyes closed and all she could think about was Kimberly, and Jason, and Zack, and Billy. He slapped her every few seconds to keep her eyes open and to fulfill what she thought his twisted imagination thought this situation should look like. At one point between grunts and slaps, she heard the bell ring signaling detention was out. Before she could even scream out she got punched in the eye.

"Scream and I'll kill you."

Trini nodded silent and fast and then waited until he was done. Then he was done, but not with her, just her body. She had fought Rita and Goldar but Ty's swift kicks to her ribs seemed more painful than anything that had ever happened before now. Maybe it was emotional and her suit wasn't on and this was going to have a long-lasting effect on her but she felt inadequate. She should be able to deal with this. Then Ty had a pocket knife. For reasons she doesn't know she screamed out.

"Bitch."

"P-Ple-Please." She hiccuped and held her arms out in front of her. The knife was brought to her body in slashes over any exposed skin. It was likely she would bleed out before anything else. Then Ty was turning the shower on the coldest setting. He smiled wickedly down at her before leaving. The nasty red of her blood seeped onto her shirt, or what was left of it. Trini forced her eyes to stay open for as long as she could. There was a clock across from the stall she was in. Two hours. She had been gone for two hours. No one was coming to look for her. Then her eyes were falling shut and she was asleep.

She woke up the next morning a dark locker room. It wasn't until Monday that she opened her eyes to the loudest scream she had ever heard. The poor old janitor staring at her with sad eyes at 5 am on a Monday morning. She was cold and turning blue and probably (most defiantly) on the verge of death. 911 showed up and she lost consciousness in the back of an ambulance with a paramedic asking too many questions. It was a state of in between. She was floating through blackness numb in her own body. Then pain. Consuming pain that tore through her every nerve.

"Oh my baby!"

"Honey, calm down."

"How can I calm down when she looks like that! We also haven't found who raped her!"

"I know, I know."

"Trini, honey, please wake up." She knew that she should, but somewhere in the back of her mind she thinks maybe life would be easier if she just fell back asleep.

"Honey, I agree with your mom. Also, your friends have been asking about you." She knew that she should, and she knew that she would. Especially if her friends needed her too. So she forced her eyes to open. The bright light of the hospital room blinding her. Trini could feel her mother reaching out and placing a hand on her shoulder. Even in her painful state she flinched away from her mother's hand.

"Oh baby! You're awake!" 

"Y-yeah. I'm fi-fine mom." Her voice sounded unnatural and rough. Trini looked around the small room a took in her parents tear stained faces, her little brothers on an uncomfortable looking couch staring up at her, and the policeman outside the door. "Wh-wher-where are my fr-friends?" 

"Oh, we told them they couldn't come today. They've been here all week, they needed to go home."

"All we-week?"

"You were found on Monday honey, it's Sunday." She closed her eyes before looking back up at her mom.

"D-do you guys kno-know what happened?" She breathed a sigh of relief when they nodded. 

"Who did this to you? That's all we need to know."

"I-I can't."

"Honey."

"Mom, I-I'm gay. I-it was a hate crime?" She doesn't know why she said it like a question, it most defiantly wasn't a question. Ty set out to hurt her, to turn her straight. It was a hate crime, there was no question.

"You're what?"

"Honey now is not the time."

"No, she said she was, gay?!"

"Honey focus on the matter at hand."

"The matter at hand."

"I wa-want to see my frie-friends." Trini felt the impending explosion of her mom. Distracting her with her friends might give her mom time to calm down, to process. 

"We'll call them." Her dad spoke up then and lead her mom and brothers out the door. She fell back asleep not too long after with only mild discomfort.

"Where is she?!" Kim. Trini's eyes snapped open to see Kimberly barrel into the room and freeze at the end of her bed. Jason, Zack, and Billy followed only to pause with Kim. "T, oh my god." Kim had moved a hand to over her mouth in sheer sadness. 

"Trini, what did they do to you?" Jason's voice was broken and tired and sounded as if he had screamed all his pain away. Kim had moved to the side of her bed before laying a hand on her shoulder. Trini watched Zack with calculating eyes as he shifted between his feet his eyes never leaving the ground.

"Trini?" Her eyes moved to Billy standing in the door holding a stuffed bear against his chest.

"H-" She coughed "Hey, bud."

"I, well really Jason bought it for you, but I picked it out, I though because it had yellow fur it'd make you feel better!" He stumbled over to the side of the bed before pushing the bear into Trini's bandaged hands. She winced at the pressure by quickly covered it up with a smile towards Billy.

"Thanks Billy."

"Trini, please tell me who did this to you." Zack still hadn't taken his eyes off the floor but his voice strained.

"Zack." He finally raised his head to stare at her with tears in her eyes.

"Please T."

"Ty. Ty did this to me."


	2. that's all i'll ever need

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for any confusion, this is a dark fic where I touch upon subjects such as rape and PTSD. If that wasn't clear I'm so so sorry and I hope this clears it up! Also thank you so much for the feedback! It feels really good to know you all are enjoying the story!

"Trini, please tell me who did this to you." Zack still hadn't taken his eyes off the floor but his voice strained.

"Zack." He finally raised his head to stare at her with tears in her eyes.

"Please T."

"Ty. Ty did this to me."

\---

Trini had never seen them this upset. To her surprise Billy was the first one to leave the room in anger, he didn't say another word to her but patted the bear he gave her on the head and left, he made sure to slam the door behind him. Jason followed him in silence not even sparing a glance back at Trini. Zack took a little longer to leave, he stood in place and studied her every movement, from her subdued winces when she breathed to the white gauze covering her arms from fingertip to collar bone.

"Trini, why did he do this? Why did he rape you?" Zack didn't shy away from what happened. He pushed the facts of her damaged body into her face without actually doing anything significant. Trini sunk further back into her pillows in shame. She had just come out to her parents and she's sure that is going to have some repercussions, there was no way she wanted to do it again. "T, did he do this because of who you like?" He spoke in such a quiet voice that Trini almost missed it. She kind of wishes she had missed it.

"Zack..."

"I swear to god!" Trini jumped at the sudden movement and outburst from next to her. Kim had gotten up and started pacing the room as Trini and Zack watched. "Why do people just think they can do whatever the fuck they want?!"

"I don't k-know." Kim turned to her with sad eyes before patting her leg.

"I know you don't Trini. I'm sorry I have to go."

"Wai-"

"No, I can't stay. The doctor said you could come to school Tuesday. I'll see you then." She was gone after that. Trini wanted to scream. Kim had left. Billy had left. Jason had left. Is this what happens after something traumatic happens? Do people just decide you're too much of a burden and leave? Zack had stayed. Zack was the one who pulled her into his arms from the side of her bed and who had kicked off his boots purely to lay with her as she fell asleep. Zack was the one who was there with a cold carton of milk in one hand and a coffee in the other when she woke up and he was the one who knew that coffee was all she needed. Then the doctor had come back in and told her that she was okay to leave the hospital tomorrow morning and to go to school the next day. Tuesday.

"Well, Dad-" Zack turned to her from his spot on the couch next to her bed.

"No, I'm so-sorry. What? D-dad?"

"Well, I did some research Trini. Your real name is Trinidad."

"No." She shook her head feeling very lucky that the other rangers weren't there.

"Oh yes. So instead of your preferred Trini, I have decided to use the back half."

"Zack."

"Yes, Dad?"

"Zack."

"Or what about-"

"I swear t-to god." Trini stifled a cough from her bed and glared at Zack who was bouncing in his seat.

"Daddy! You can be Daddy."

"I n-eed you to leave."

"You love me."

"Debatable."

"Anyway! Dad, since you get to go home tomorrow what if I came over and cooked you a nice Chinese dinner!"

"Do yo-you mean Chi-Chinese take out?"

"That I do."

"Sure Zack."

"Oh sweet!" He fist pumped before catching sight of one particularly long cut across her collar bone. She followed his gaze and shifted her hospital gown to cover it. "Trini, I'm so sorry we didn't come find you." She shook her head and smiled at him.

"You might not have found me, but you stayed Zack. That's all I'll ever need." He nodded and got up from the couch to take her hand in his. She smiled when she felt three light squeezes against her wrist on one of the only places the bandages did not hit. One of the only places on her body that was still pure. "Zack I want to shower." He tilted his head in question but his lips curved upwards all the same.

"Okay T. I'll get the nurse."

"No!" She cried out and he turned around startled. "Please, don't leave me." Her voice came out a whisper and he sat on the edge of her bed and pressed the nurse call button on the side of her bed.

"Okay, okay." She didn't know she was crying. She only realized it when Zack reached towards her and wiped a tear from her cheek with his thumb.

"Hello? You pressed the call button?" Trini pushed Zack's hand away from her face as the nurse walked into the room.

"Yeah." She nodded in confirmation at the nurse and looked to Zack to see if he would do the explaining. She didn't trust her voice.

"Trini here really wants to shower. Is that cool?" He smiled at the nurse in a way she supposed would be charming. Then the nurse was nodding and explaining how she could help her shower.

"No. It's ok-okay I can sho-shower myself. Can Z-Zack sit with me thoug-though?" The nurse nodded and helped Zack lift her into a wheelchair. She closed her eyes as Zack wheeled her to the showers down the hall. It was surreal really. Yesterday she was fine (other than her closeted self with an impending explosion that came sooner rather than later). Then Ty had to come along and fuck it up. Three out of four rangers had left her. Three out of four rangers had decided that she was too messed up to work on. To work with. She didn't feel messed up. The obvious physical deformity was there but other then what seemed to be a thin layer of dirt she didn't feel messed up. He voice was scratchy and she now had an ever present stutter in her day to day speaking.

"Trini? Trini where are you? Get out of your head." Zack appeared in her line of sight with his eyes crinkling in worry. Trini smiled up at him and started to lift herself out of her wheelchair. "Hey, calm down tiger." He eased his hand onto her back to help her up and out of the chair before sitting on a stool outside the shower. He kept his hand firmly in hers until she was behind the curtain.

Stripping out of her clothes definitely hurt her. The cuts and scabs and newly made scars on her body pulled with each piece of fabric she took off her body. The shower in the stall was broken but she was already out of her clothes so she decided she could deal with a cold shower. The stall was sanitary no red anywhere. No red splatters from where the knife met her skin. The cold water beat down on Trini's head with a vengeance that she couldn't understand. It was freezing and then there was a flash. A flash of red. A flash where she could see her curled up figure in the corner of the stall. She backed up until she was against the side of the shower. Trini shut her eyes and pressed her palms to her eyes in frustration. She was fine. She had to be fine. The ranger wouldn't take her back if she was broken. Billy wouldn't take her back if she was useless. Jason wouldn't take her back if she was damaged. Kim wouldn't take her back if she-

"Trini!" Two arms wrapped around her waist and she was pulled back into someone's body. She thrashed backward and cried out in fear.

"No Ty! Let go Ty!" She kicked out and hit against the body behind her.

"Trini it's Zack! It's Zack! Trini!" She collapsed against his body and let out a choked sob. Trini felt his hand run through her hair in what she was sure was supposed to be comforting. 

"Let go! Let go!" She pulled Zack's body down to the floor with hers. The water covered her body making her shiver against Zack. She could feel him reach out of the shower to find her towel which she was pretty sure she forgot.

"T, I think you left your towel in your room. I can go get it?" He locked his arms tighter around her shivering figure while trying to turn the shower off simultaneously. 

"No. Please stay with me. Please." She begged. She pleaded into the open air. Trini could feel him nodding against her back. She had shifted into his lap while sat in the shower. Zack's forehead was resting on her upper back and his arms were wrapped securely around her waist. She had yet to put on clothes but somehow failed to feel any shame about it. 

"Okay." She could tell he had taken off his jacket before her freak out. His arms were bare and his shirt was soaked. He pulled her out of the still running shower and onto the little bench outside that he had sat on not moments before. Leather sticks to wet skin and it's uncomfortable, but she doesn't have a towel and Zack only had a leather jacket. He's taller than her by at least nine inches so the jacket hangs down to her thighs and gives her long jacket gloves. 

"Zack, I-I'm sorry." She doesn't know why she apologized (she does). Trini leaned her head against Zack's shoulder let out a sob.

"Trini there's nothing to be sorry for!"

"But there is!" He turned her head towards him with two fingers against her cheek.

"Trini, you went through a terrible thing! Your reaction to it isn't anything you can control." She shook her head quickly against his shoulder where she had rested her head again. 

"I have to go to school on Tuesday."

"You don't have to do anything."

"I do."

"We'd all support you if you moved schools altogether."

"You mean you'd support me."

"I mean I'd support you, and Billy, and Jason, and Kim!"

"They left me." Trini brought her legs up to her chest and studied the water drops that ran down the leather of the jacket.

"They wouldn't."

"They did."

"Trini-"

"Please don't lie to me! I told them who hurt me! I told them who did this to me! They left, they didn't feel like I was worthy enough to help. You stayed Zack. You are the only one who cares about me! My own parents thought the fact that I liked girls was more important than the fact that I was assaulted. Apparently, the fact that I'm gay is more important than the fact that I was raped. Zack, you stayed." She sniffled and pulled away from him moving to sit back in her wheelchair, she didn't stutter once and hoped that her pain seeped through her words and into Zack. She hoped he got the message behind her words. She hoped he got the fear she felt. Trini watched him as he stared at her through worried eyes. "Please just push me back Zack."

Trini didn't get much sleep that night. Every time she shut her eyes all she could see was Ty's large figure above her bed waiting for her to let her guard down. She was fine. She swears by the fact that she's fine in order to get out of the hospital the next morning. It's her dad that picks her up from the hospital. She would ride her bike if she could, but apparently hospital policy prohibits patients from biking away from the hospital.

So she spent Monday in her bed trying her best not to cry as the memories flooded through her. She would wave away her parents when they would come in her room to check up on her. At around noon Zack showed up wanting to check up on her.

"Trinidad!"

"Zack."

"Why the glum face?"

"Zack."

"Okay, dumb question. Have you eaten yet?"

"No."

"I believe I promised you Chinese cuisine?"

"I be-believe so."

"I delivered."

"Zack, you kn-know y-you're the best rig-right?"

"I had a feeling."

"Give me t-the food."

"You're going to be okay. I hope you believe that."

"I hope so too Zack. I hope so too."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I'm trying my best to incorporate some humor while trying to simultaneously not lose the atmosphere I created in the last chapter. This is proving to be harder than I anticipated.

**Author's Note:**

> Also on Wattpad:  
> https://www.wattpad.com/user/Adarocean


End file.
